1. Field of the Invention
The subject of the invention generally relates to a method of communicating information between a plurality of computer users and more particularly to a method of communicating information between a plurality of computer users concerning an active software application without providing an input to the active software application.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Graphical user interface software applications are well known and include applications such as WINDOWS (Trademark) published by Microsoft Corporation. Computers having resident software applications such as WINDOWS (Trademark) can be networked together to facilitate a free exchange of information between the users of the computers. If two computer users wish to discuss, for example, a particular document in a word processing application or a set of data in a spreadsheet application then any amendments made to the document or spreadsheet by the user results in amendment of the document or spreadsheet. This is disadvantageous as the document or spreadsheet cannot be annotated by one user and the annotations used by another user without amending the document or spreadsheets.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method of communicating information between a plurality of computer users to enable a free exchange of information concerning a subject computer application without amending either the software application or a document or the like being displayed by that application.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a method of communicating information between the plurality of computer users comprising the steps of: establishing a data communications link between the users; providing each user with a common display of a subject software application on a visual display unit, which application is susceptible to data input from at least one of the users via the data communications link; activating an overlay application to generate a transparent display on the visual display unit of at least one user; and positioning the transparent display over at least a part of the common display, the common display remaining visible to the or each user, in which method an input made by the or each user having the transparent display over the common display of the subject application is displayed on the transparent display of the users and is not perceived as an input by the subject application.